Following Him to the Vineyard

 .This is part three of my message based on the text found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 

We began this series focusing on verse one in which God told Abram: “Go forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a land which I will show you.”

 

And simply said: “Abram followed Him.” But Abram isn’t the only person whom God has ever called to follow Him. Old Testament history is abundant testimony of how often God said to His Chosen people through the prophets, “Follow Me.” The New Testament gospels also give ample testimony of how often the Lord Jesus said to those of His day, “Follow Me.”

 

There are many reasons God calls us to follow Him – besides the obvious, “He is our Creator.” We saw two weeks ago that He calls us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. Last week we reminded ourselves that it is only to those who follow Him through obedience to the Scriptures that enjoy God's spiritual protection.

 

Today I want us to look at a third reason God calls us to follow Him, and it is this: We are, as the apostle Paul told the Christians at Corinth (1 Corinthians 3:9) “God’s coworkers.” The Creator of heaven and earth, of all things in the earth and the universe – He gives those who follow Him the incomprehensible gift and the wondrous and inexplicable privilege of actually joining with Him to not only RESCUE men and women from the earthly ravages and pains of sin, but to also work with Him to bring them to eternal life.

 

I will not spend a lot of time this afternoon talking about that horror which awaits EVERY man and woman living in Ashwood Meadows today who have rejected God's offer of eternal forgiveness and eternal life. Such a wondrous gift is offered only to those who will come in humble repentance and obedience to the Savior.

 

But for now, let this picture say what a thousand words could not adequately say. Most of you know the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, found in Luke 16. The rich man lived in splendor, while Lazarus sat outside his gate, covered with sores and begging for crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. When both eventually died, the rich man went to what we would call hell. Lazarus went to what we would call Paradise. We pick up the dreadful story in verse 23 of chapter 16 with the Rich Man:

 

“In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 

 

Scripture paints a terribly clear picture of what is the sure destiny of those who reject Christ’s atonement for their sins. That destiny is an eternity in torment. I could cite dozens of such passages in both the Old and New Testament, but I will not because I do not want to focus our attention today on that particular reality – except to assure us that when we REALLY follow Jesus – and not just ‘play church’ – when we really follow Jesus, we have nothing to fear of death or of hell. Rather, when we really follow Jesus, He permits us to actually work together with Him to RESCUE others from that horrible and inevitable fate.

 

Just think for a moment what it means that the Almighty King of the universe invites us to work with Him to pull to safety men and women who are without Christ’s atonement for their sins and therefore lost to an eternity of unthinkable horror in the Lake of Fire.

 

Fanny Crosby, who was blind since infancy, urged us well: “Rescue the perishing, care for the dying, snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, tell them of Jesus the mighty to save. Oh, Rescue the perishing, care for the dying; Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

So, as I said, I will not spend any more time today talking about how following Jesus lets us work with God to pull others from the Lake of Fire. Instead, I want to take us down an overlapping road we walk when we follow Christ. That road is the one on which, working together with Christ, we save men, women, boys, and girls also from a life of loneliness, isolation, despair, emptiness, and a deep sense of worthlessness.

 

Think of THAT glorious truth – a truth I certainly can attest to as true, because I can easily extrapolate where I’d be today if Christians along my path had not told me about Jesus. I can infer from my past life – just as many of you can also draw conclusions as to where YOU would be today if no one had told you of Jesus. Those who were blasphemers, sexually immoral and perverse, drunkards and liars, murderers and adulterers, self-righteous and thieves – the list of sins that men and women – even some of us here – the list of sins people commit and have committed seems endless.

 

But – and this is the point – the Almighty and utterly holy God grants all who follow Him the right to work with Him to save those who were just like we were. He grants us the privilege to pull them from that kind of life in THIS life.

 

Now, if I was talking to a group of teenagers or 20 or 30- somethings, most would not have an idea of what I’m talking about. But we in our 60s, 70s, 80s and older know from personal experience what it’s like to reap the sorrows of sin’s wages. We know from personal experience the truth of Jesus’ statement in John 10:10 “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

To ‘steal and kill and destroy.’ Listen to only some of the evidence of the Thief’s work: Nearly 50 million Americans 12 years old and older are addicted to drugs. Recent divorce statistics tell us nearly 45% of first-time marriages are dissolved. But it doesn’t get any better for subsequent marriages. Sixty percent of second marriages and nearly 75%(!) of third marriages end in divorce. And on that same subject, did you know that nearly one in four children under the age of 18 live in one-parent homes? Furthermore, did you know that children in Christian homes are just as likely to be living with only one parent as those in non-Christian homes?

 

But that is not the end of the evidence of the Thief’s ongoing work. Let’s look at suicide statistics. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for CHILDREN between the ages of 10 and 14. And those aged 75 and older had the HIGHEST suicide rate among all age groups. And what about the 65 million babies killed in abortion clinics since the Supreme Court signed their death warrants in 1973? Sixty-five million. That’s more than the combined populations of Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

 

I could stand here and cite yet more mournful proof of the Devil’s work in our world, but why? It’s clear we are in a deadly spiritual and supernatural battle – a battle to which God actually invites you and me who follow Him to rescue those who are trapped by Satan’s talons, and those who are on the edge of being trapped.

 

Oh, may God help us understand the wonder of what He grants those who follow Him. God help us know the immeasurable gift He gives us to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. He offers us the right and the privilege to rescue people not only from an eternal grave in the lake of fire, but also from a lifetime of regrets in this life. You know from experience – and I certainly know from personal experience – how sin results in broken homes, broken bodies, and broken hearts. We know from personal experience how sin takes us farther than we want to go. It keeps us longer than we want to stay. And it costs us more than we want to pay. Sin GUARANTEES the sinner a life of regrets.

 

A life of regrets. 

As I prepared this message, I thought of the man whom Nancy and I met very briefly nearly 25 years ago as we waited to board a boat for an evening cruise around the San Diego harbor. His name was William. I didn’t know why he started talking with me, but I mostly listened as he related his story.

 

He’d just turned 64 a few months earlier. He’d been 17 when he enlisted in the Navy at the beginning of Viet Nam. By the time he was 18 he was already an alcoholic and his life on the path to ruin. And ruined, he was. Eventually he lost his wife, his three children, and couldn’t hold a job. When we met him, he was living in a local flop house for about $100 a month.

 

Have you known men or women like William? Whether it’s alcohol, or drugs, or pornography, or whatever the addiction, William and those like him live with a ton of regrets and a history of wrong choices that beat them into the ground.    

 

And that is where you and I who follow Jesus – who REALLY follow Jesus – where we come into the story of men and women living with regrets or who are on the path of eventual regrets. Listen to what the Lord Jesus told His disciples: (John 4:35) “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” 

 

Do you WANT to work with God in the whitened fields? I’ll ask the question again as I asked earlier – think of where YOU would be today, what YOUR life would be like today if no one had told you about the love and mercy and forgiveness and new life – NEW LIFE – offered by the Father through Jesus Christ.

 

Someone told YOU, and now YOU have the opportunity to tell others, and in so doing, work with God to snatch them from disaster.

 

And what can you tell them? That’s easy. Tell them what God has done for you. How He changed your trajectory as you moved through life making one bad choice after another. Tell them.

 

But I find in talking and listening to other Christians that so many of them are unwilling to be honest AND humble with others about their past failures and current flaws. And in being resistant to admitting their faults they erect a wall between them and those in need because those in need do not believe the Christian can truly understand what they’re going through.  And therefore, the Christian MISSES the opportunity to be a co-worker with God for the person’s rescue.

 

It is for good reason the apostle Paul – and if you are familiar with his epistles you know he was very open with others to tell them of his own failures – and so Paul wrote these words to the Corinthian Christians – words that certainly ought to encourage us today: (2 Corinthians 1:3-4) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

 

Are you following him? Are you humble before others, willing to talk of your own failures and flaws, and how God came to you IN those failures and flaws? Listen, God is not expecting perfection in our work with Him for the Kingdom. He knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust. But the question remains: Are you following Him? Are you trying to please Him? Because if you are, He WILL use you. All He’s looking for from us is our willing and open heart. The rest will come. Perfection – as much as is possible in this life – perfection in our working together with God will come.

 

Does Jesus have your heart? Are you asking Him to make you fall more deeply in love with Him? If you are doing these things, then be ASSURED, He WILL use you in His vineyard.

God called Abram to leave his friends and neighbors and, very likely, many of his own family members and follow Him to a place as yet unknown. In a similar way, when God called me back in December 1972, He called me to leave all that I had once embraced and follow Him. Follow where?  At the time, I did not, nor could I know. And here I am today.

 

In a similar way, when God called YOU, back whenever it was, He called you to leave all that YOU once embraced to follow Him. Follow where? At the time you didn’t know, nor could you know. But here you are.

 

You and I followed because we knew, at least intuitively at the time, that He alone has the words of eternal life. We followed because we knew, at least intuitively at the time, that He would provide us supernatural protection from theological heresy.

 

And we follow Him because He offers us a job – so to speak. He offers us a CRITICALLY important role in His kingdom, and that is to work WITH Him not only for the eternal salvation of souls, but to also lead others by the hand away from the broad road that leads inexorably to heartache, loss, and a ton of regrets.

 

Christian – are you following Him? The fields are truly white and waiting for harvesting. Then ask Him now – today and every day – ask Him how you can work with Him every day in His vineyard.

Spiritual Protection

Following Him for Spiritual Protection

 

This is part two of my message based on the text found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 

As last week, I am focusing our attention on verse one in which God told Abram: “Go forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a land which I will show you.”

 

And simply said: “Abram followed Him.” And, as we also saw last week, Abram was not and is not the only person God has called to follow Him out of a comfortable life. Old Testament history is abundant testimony of how often God said to His Chosen people through the prophets, “Follow Me.” And the New Testament gospels also give ample testimony of how often the Lord Jesus said to those of His day, “Follow Me.”

 

There are likely many reasons God calls us to follow Him. Last week we looked at only one. When so many in the crowds surrounding Jesus decided to no longer follow Him, Jesus asked the Twelve if they also were going to leave. Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69)

 

That Jesus ALONE has the words of eternal life is a critically important point, and we dare not gloss over it. With all the voices in our society calling us in dozens of directions – only Jesus has the words of that bring true freedom, true hope – along with everlasting life.

 

Listen: Surely the reason so many Christians grapple with sin – even and especially what many Christians consider ‘serious’ sin such as sexual immoralities – including pornography – and they remain trapped in hatreds, bigotries, habitual lying, gossip, and self-righteousness – the reason so many are trapped in sins and cannot seem to extricate themselves is because they read their Bible only sporadically – if at all. They don’t have much of a prayer life. And they think it sufficient for this spiritual warfare to simply attend church.

 

THAT – oh, please hear this – THAT is a sure recipe for failure in our walk with Jesus.

 

And so, that first point answering the question why God calls us to follow Him leads quite seamlessly to a second reason the Lord calls us to follow Him – which one might expect it to overlap with the first because the Bible is an integrated Book, whose theme of redemption and salvation and instructions in righteousness flow from one end of the Bible to the other.

 

He calls us to follow Him for our spiritual protection. I readily admit my own difficulty to recognize the constant, never ending spiritual warfare that rages around us 24 hours a day, 365 days around the calendar year. It never lets us. Not for a moment.

 

Many of you remember Paul’s warning in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus: (6:11ff) “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

 

And we remember from the context of his letter that the pieces of our armor – the helmet, the breastplate, the belt, the shield, the shoes, and the sword are ALL rooted in God's revealed word to us through His scriptures.

 

And many of you remember the Lord’s warning to the religious leaders and laity who’d gathered around Him: (John 10:1-5) “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 

 

Listen, please. God LOVES you so much He sent His Son to die your death. Yet, no one should be surprised to learn how many in the pews AND pulpits DO NOT know the voice of strangers. Such ignorance was true in the first century, and it remains true in the 21^st. It was for good reason Jude warned: (Jude 1:4) “For certain persons have crept in [to the church fellowship] unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

 

And Paul warned the LEADERS of Ephesus (Acts 20:29-31a): “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert.” 

 

Listen, please: Scripture tells us Satan was able to seduce one-third of the angels in heaven, those who worshiped in their Creator’s very presence, who lived in the blissful realm of God's eternal glory.  He seduced one-third of them to rebel against their holy Creator. You’ll find that reference in Revelation 12:3-9 and in other places scattered throughout God's word.

 

And since Saten was able to do THAT, don’t think for a moment he is not actively trying to seduce YOU into the same rebellion – you who have never seen yet the glories of heaven.  And the ONLY, the ONLY reason he is unsuccessful with you and me is because our God, through His Holy Spirit, protects our minds from Satan’s most cunning deceptions.

 

And HOW does God protect us? By what means? Certainly, it is true that our God does not permit the devil to test us or tempt us beyond what our Father knows we can endure. Many of you recognize that promise from 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” 

 

But I believe, and I teach, and I preach that the primary method God uses to provide us His spiritual and supernatural protection from theological errors that lead a person away from salvation – that method is through and by God’s fully inerrant, fully infallible, and fully inspired word, which we call the Bible.

It is no surprise, then, that the Psalmist wrote: (Psalm 119:9, 11) “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” Later in the same psalm he wrote: (Psalm 119:105) “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

 

Nor are we surprised that Paul, the former rabbi and Pharisee, instructed his protégé, Timothy: (2 Timothy 3:16-17) “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

 

“Training in righteousness.”  It is for that PROTECTIVE training that God gave us teachers to help us understand things that, at first, are confusing. Listen to Paul again: (Ephesians 4:11-14)  “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

 

There were in the first century, and in every century since, various winds of doctrine thought up by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming. Such as – and I will cite only a few because the list of ancient and modern false teaching would fill a college semester course:

 

Gnosticism in its multiple forms is one false teaching. Gnostics believed and modern-day Gnostics still believe that the created world and all things in it are evil. Only God, who is spirit, is good. Jesus was a created Being who was spirit and only appeared to inhabit evil flesh. Gnostics also believed and believe that salvation is possible only through a knowledge of their secret teachings which is known only by a select group of ‘enlightened’ teachers. Many modern-day New Age teachers fall into this category.

 

The Judaizers of the first century was and remains another false teaching. Judaizers taught that salvation is possible only through following the Law, along with its hundreds of legalistic minutiae. Some of you have come out of churches where strict adherence to their church’s rules is vital to salvation. Other churches that fall into this heresy are those which teach that good works and good efforts CONTRIBUTE to salvation.  But Scripture is superbly clear – while good works are important to the Christian life, it is only and exclusively our faith in Christ alone whereby God imputes to us salvation. Indeed, Scripture tells us that if we seek to be justified by our works, we have fallen from God's grace. You will find that reference in Galatians 5:4.

 

Arianism is yet another false teaching. Like the Gnostics, Arians taught that Jesus was the highest and greatest of God's creation, but a created Being, nonetheless. Modern-day Jehovah’s Witnesses and the original Mormons fall into this category of heretical teaching.

 

Finally, for our purposes here, was and is the modern heresy of Chrislam. Chrislam is a syncretism – a blending – of Christianity and Islam. Pope Francis is a proponent of the merging of the two. But I will tell you as clearly and as kindly as I can, Islam and Christianity have absolutely nothing in common as it relates to God, to Jesus, and to eternal life. Islam makes no secret about its view of Jesus. To Muslims, Jesus is NOT Jehovah God in the flesh. To them, the idea of the trinity is blasphemy. In their theology, Jesus did not resurrect from the dead.

 

And so, we will stop there with the ancient and modern false teaching because I think the point is made. God tells us to follow Him and only Him through His inerrant and infallible word and taught by godly and well-schooled pastors and teachers. I will say it once again for emphasis: Only by following God's word can we find spiritual protection from error.

 

“Be on your guard.” St Peter wrote, “so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  (2 Peter 3:14-18)

 

So, I will say it once again for emphasis: The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to protect those who follow Christ from the theological errors that will result in eternal damnation.

 

And while I am on this vitally important subject of knowing and obeying God's word, I want to remind you of my ‘2+2 = 1+3’ method of Bible reading.

 

If you read only two chapters of the Old Testament every day – takes about 10 minutes or so on average, and you read two chapters of the New Testament every day – takes another 10 minutes or so on average – then you will have read the entire Old Testament once in a year and the New Testament THREE TIMES in a year. Thus the 2+2 = 1+3. There are dozens of annual Bible reading plans on the internet. I have given many of you my own annual plan to try.

 

For as long as I have been here at Ashwood Meadows as your pastor, I have striven to help everyone grow in their faith and remain on the narrow road that leads to eternal life. I do not want anyone to fall prey to liars and false teachers who want to steal your soul.

 

God called Abram – and Abram followed because he knew – if nothing else but intuitively that God had the words of eternal life. He followed God because He knew – if nothing else but intuitively that the One who spun worlds and galaxies into place would shield him and his family with divine protection from spiritual error.

 

Divine protection. Do you want God's divine protection from spiritual error and danger? Then follow the voice of the Shepherd. It is NOT enough to read daily devotional booklets like Daily Bread and The Word Among Us.

 

Yes, those publications have their place, but they are NOT a substitute for reading the Bible itself. If you have to choose because of time constraints or physical limitations between the Bible and a devotional booklet, you are significantly shortchanging yourself if you choose the devotional over God’s word.

Someone wisely said, “The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” God gave us His word and He calls us to follow His word because it is in following His word that we are protected from straying onto the broad road that leads to destruction.

 

For good reason the Lord warned those who followed Him in that first century: (Matthew 7:24-27) “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”

 

Some of you remember the song we taught our children – and they are good lyrics for adults to put into daily practice: “Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow.”

 

Next week we’ll look at only one more reason to follow Him – that being the incalculable honor and privilege of working with God in His vineyard.

 

What it Means to Follow Jesus

 My text for today is found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

 

I want to focus our attention specifically on verse one: “Go forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a land which I will show you.”

 

If you’ve have been in the church for a while, it’s likely you’ve heard many messages based on this text in which God called Abram to leave his home for an unknown country. I certainly have heard such sermons. But as I studied this text for today’s message, I stopped long enough to consider the WEIGHT that simple command from God must have been for Abram to follow God's voice.

 

Abram is not simply a name in the Bible. He was a real person who was 75 years old when God called him from his home. I’ll say that again for emphasis. He was seventy-five years old when God called him from his home.

 

Seventy-five years is a long time to grow up in a pagan culture with all of its attending religious practices, a culture in which there was likely zero knowledge of the God of the universe. Seventy-five years living and working and making relationships in your small community. Seventy-five years attending births and weddings and funerals of family and friends and neighbors.

 

A real person with a real life.

 

The city of Ur in Abram’s day was a prosperous metropolis and home of the Sumerian kings. It had a population of about a quarter million people and was a weathy trading and manufacturing center.The city also boasted engineers, architects, farmers, artisans, and renowned jewelers. Indeed, the Sumerians even knew how to isolate a variey of chemicals, including acetylsalicylic acid (“aspirin”) to reduce fever and pain.

 

Ur was also the home of the temple dedicated to the moon-good, Nanna who was served by multitudes of priests, priestesses, musicians, eunuchs and temple slaves. Besides their chief city god, the people of Ur worshipped hundreds of other gods whose worship included temple prostitution and sexual perversions of all kinds.

 

It is from THIS culture that God called Abram. It was from THIS culture that the God of the universe broke into his affluent and comfortable life and commanded him to leave it all behind.

 

Now let’s pause a moment to make some application. Abram was not and IS not the only person God has called to follow Him out of their comfortable life. How often did God speak through the prophets to His chosen people: “Follow Me”?  How often did the Lord Jesus urge those of His day, “Follow Me”?

 

And even if we were raised on the front pew of the church, even if we were baptized as an infant or young child – a time came in EACH of our lives that God called us OUT of the life in which we lived and worked and established relationships – He called us to follow Him into a deeper life with Him. At least, I HOPE that has been – and IS – your experience. I hope you are always desiring to follow Jesus into a deeper relationship with Him who, as St Peter wrote, “called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

 

Who among us has not discovered that to follow Him who ‘was made flesh and dwelt among us” – to follow Jesus in humble obedience was and is costly? Who has not lost friends, even family, because you decided to leave your old life and relationships to follow the One who died on that cross as our substitute, to pay the penalty of God's wrath – wrath headed our way until we confessed our sins to the Father and received His total forgiveness because of the blood Jesus shed for our sins? And to this day, some of you still pay the price of ridicule and you are ostracized by people even here at Ashwood because of your unapologetic relationship with Christ.

 

And I want to tell you that I thank God that you are standing firm in your faith. I thank God you still stay the course.

 

Jesus called YOU to follow Him. Whether it was a long time ago, or not so long ago, He called you to follow Him. But I hope no one here is comfortable following Jesus in the same way you followed Him even last year. Even the great apostle Paul cried aloud: (Philippians 3:10-11) “[Oh!] that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

 

Our lives in Christ is really all about following Him – wherever He leads us and WHENEVER He leads us. To follow Jesus means to follow Him wherever He goes – to the heights of joy and companionship on the Mount of Transfiguration, and also to the depths of spiritual and emotional agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. It will mean following the Master when our friends have deserted us and Mt Calvary looms on the not-so-distant horizon.

 

John 12:24-26  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also;

 

Listen to what He told His disciples in Mark’s gospel. Jesus summoned the crowd and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34)

 

THAT is what it means to follow Jesus.

 

Now all that I’ve said is simply prelude to the question that every thinking person ought to ask: WHY does God want us to follow Him wherever He tells us to go? And the answer to that would be easy enough to simply say, “Because He said so.”

“Because He said so.”

 

That kind of response got me to thinking back to the time when I was an arrogant pre-teen.  Sometimes I wanted to go with friends where mom didn’t want me to go. And when I argued the point with her, after a while she’d shut down the conversation with a brusk, “Because I said so.”

 

And you may have heard the same thing out of your own parents’ mouths: “Because I said so.”

 

But our Father in heaven – although He absolutely has the right to shut down the discussion with a simple, “Because I said so,” He does not do that. He gives us reasons to follow Him wherever He sends. He gives us reason for us to follow His commandments and instructions. We might not LIKE His reasons, but it’s good to know that He does not simply ‘pull rank’ – as they say. He is a loving, merciful, compassionate, and PROTECTIVE Father, Savior, and Lover of our souls.

 

So, as I considered the question of WHY God wants us to follow Him, I thought of at least THREE reasons, EACH of which is rooted in His incomprehensible love and desire to protect you and me.

 

We don’t have time today to explore each of those reasons, so today we’ll look only one. We will continue this exploration next week.

 

So, the first reason: He alone has the words of eternal life.

 

When so many of those who followed Jesus decided to no longer follow Him, the Lord asked the Twelve: “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69)

                                                     

Why should we follow Jesus? Who else should we go after? The rabbis and Jewish scholars of Jesus’ day didn’t have the words of eternal life. In earlier and then later centuries, right to this present moment, other religious leaders like Buddha, and Mohammend, the Mormon’s Joseph Smith, the Jehovah’s Witnesses Charles Russell, or Mary Baker Eddy of the Christian Science religion – or a host of other false teachers throughout the millennia – none of them had the words of eternal life.

 

Christ alone – BECAUSE He is almighty God incarnate – He alone is Truth and tells us the Truth. That’s why He said, (John 8:12) “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” 

 

Walking in darkness. John writes in his first epistle that the one who walks in darkness “does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:11). And there is not a Christian in this sanctuary who does not know people who have in the past walked in darkness – to their own destruction. And there is not a Christian in this sanctuary who does not know those who currently walk in darkness and whose end will also be destruction unless they repent and turn to follow the Light of the world.

 

For the sake of time, we can’t look in detail at this next text, but Paul lays out pretty well what walking in darkness looks like. You’ll find it in the last part of Romans chapter one. Here is only a snippet: (Romans 1:28-32) 

 

“And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parent, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

 

Just this last week I came face to face once again with someone walking in darkness. But what is so tragic is that this man actually thinks he’s a Christian. He thinks he is following Christ. He regularly attends church and receives Holy Communion. He ministers as a lector in his church – one who reads the Bible portion before the sermon. And for years, I thought he was a faithful follower of Christ because he gave all the outward evidence of being a Christian.

 

But I was deceived. Let me tell you why – and I know I’ve spoken about these incendiary social issues in recent weeks, but I do so again because I am so grief-stricken about this guy who has been my friend. And I’m also SO very worried about everyone in this sanctuary – including myself and my wife. Let me paraphrase what St Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “We must not be ignorant of Satan’s schemes.” (2 Corinthians 2:11)

 

This guy I’m talking about, who receives Holy Communion each week, is so full of darkness spawned by his irrational hatred of Donald Trump, that he has vowed to vote for the Democrats, DESPITE their promotion and support of the cold-blooded murder of nearly 3,000 babies EVERY DAY in American abortion clinics.

 

He vows to vote for the Democrates even though they openly and proudly fund the mutilation of little boys, surgically removing their genitals because the children think they want to be girls.

 

He will vote for the Democrats this November, even though they advocate for the grooming of little school children, to introduce them to the ‘joys’ of homosexual sex. Can you fathom such a thing? These children can hardly tie their shoes without their parent’s help, and those politicians want to distort their sexual identities and morals before their morals can even be formed.

 

Scripture is very clear that the Holy Spirit lives inside each and every follower of Christ. Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to encourage a true Christian to support with their votes or their finances politicians of whatever party who boldly and unapologetically spit in God's face?

 

If Jesus is truly your Lord, then you know the answer to that question.

 

God wants us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. And to ignore those words will inevitably and inexorably bring the person to an eternity in hell and the Lake of Fire.

 

God calls us to follow Him because He alone has the words of eternal life. Listen to the prophet Isaiah, writing some 700 years before Christ, as he warns Israel – and by extension warns you and me here in this sanctuary: (Isaiah 8:20, NKJV) “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”

 

We sang a song last week, and we sang it again this week for emphasis: “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

 

Please. As your pastor and your friend, I implore you – decide today, decide NOW – to follow Jesus and NOT the media or the culture. Please, decide to follow Jesus and DO whatever He tells you to do. Abraham is a wonderful example of someone who chooses to follow Truth – wherever it leads. Abraham knew by faith that God alone has the words of eternal lilfe.

 

Next week we will explore other reasons why we are privileged to hear our Creator say to us: “Follow Me.”